Offline Leads Meeting Notes 4/24/24

Attendees: Tom Junk, Giuseppe Cerat, Herb Greenlee, Steven Gardiner, Erica Snider, Katherine Lato

1. New geometry validation status

   • Is anyone working on this?
   • Tom: started a build with RC0. Easier to merge than expected. Someone else was working on RC1. It builds and runs, but no one has checked the output.
   • The validation is fairly simple. Do not expect any changes in results, so just see that nothing changes. 
     • Given this, we will adopt a new acceptance protocol:  one completed validation, then proceed with the migration. 

2. Erica has completed the LArSoft portion of SpaceCharge changes requested by SBN. 

   • Joseph Zennamo is responsible for the experiment side. Mike Mooney will be making the necessary changes to SpaceCharge service, and will do so for all experiments. Joseph has been busy with SBND commissioning, but said he will get to this soon.
   • Once SpaceCharge changes proceed, LArSoft will make changes necessary for TPC-dependent electric fields (nominal) and electron lifetimes.
     • Tom commented on possibly spatial dependence of lifetime. A resolution issue.
     • Erica:  Would like to see the data that says it’s important enough to matter.
     • Tom:  believes they have ProtoDUNE data that says it does not.

3. Changes to recob::Hit coming

   • The GausHitFinder is also changing. Will add code to draw boundaries between overlapping hits, and use the smaller sums to fill the new data members
   • At present, the new algorithm is built into the hit finder code. If a change is needed to diversify the solution, then it will be made into a tool. That was the promise from the algorithm authors [at DUNE].  
   • Giuseppe commented to be sure that new code does not affect the multi-threading capabilities.
     • Are reviewing the PRs now, so will check.

4. Note about services that are either going away or being transferred to other places (which could include the experiments)

   • Has been mentioned to experiments, hopefully at FIFE meetings
   • The operations budget has been stressed, so many systems are being affected.
   • Things like POMS, SciSoft web service, CI system, Spack may be impacted.
   • Bringing this up because it (a) impacts all experiments, and (b) may impact LArSoft support in some way. 
   • DSSL does not want to see loss of support for any of these critical resources. Giuseppe echoed that CSAID has worked hard for a long time to get everyone consolidated into using these common solutions, so it would be a bad thing to turn around and tell people that they needed experiment specific solutions from now on.
     • Exactly…
     • May need to organize meetings with current support people, understand how and if support can be moved to DSSL

5. Spack status

   • Kyle has been working on the development environment part of this. Will report at the Coordination meeting after this next one. Waiting to hear details about a potential solution from Sandia NL.
   • More than just packaging is required. Spack environment needed. 

6. Round-table

   • SBN Data/Infrastructure (Giuseppe)
     •  SBN has recently cut a production release, but realized that some other changes in larsim are needed
       • Decided to update production to newer LArSoft base release – now v09_89_01.
       • Tracy wrote an email about this last week. Everyone is on board as far as I can tell.
     •  SBND also needs a new GENIE release to fix a timing problem for “dirt” events.
       •  The new GENIE release has been tagged, but not yet distributed in UPS. Eventually this will need to be picked up by the SBN production release
       • Erica:  So SBN will be on a separate version of GENIE?
       • No, hope not.
       • Mentioned GENIE version decoupling work that is on-going. Have not completed this yet, so will either need to isolate any special GENIE version to a production branch, or bring all of LArSoft along.
     • Hosted a first spack tutorial at SBN Analysis Infrastructure meeting
       • Idea within SBN was to have separate follow-ups for different communities
       • Building and distributing code under Spack for release managers and similar
       • When Spack development solution ready, then another tutorial on that for a larger audience.
       • Need to know the timeline for things
       • Erica: Sounds like a good plan.

• • MicroBooNE (Herb)

• • • LArSoft will stop building under SL7, right?
      • Erica:  We cannot run SL7 at all, though we should be able to provide builds using containers, for use within containers.  You can assume we would continue to build for the platforms experiments required, at least for the time being, so will provide SL7 builds if MicroBooNE needs those. 
      • Is MicroBooNE committed to SL7 for the foreseeable future? Yes for MCC9.
    • Will MicroBooNE remain at MCC9 forever? Seems that some parts of MicroBooNE will
      • Discussed MCC10. Adoption has been very slow. Even people working on DL code have been back-porting into older releases. Herb has encouraged them to use integration releases (ie, MCC10), but the developers seem reluctant.
      • Giuseppe mentioned that MCC10 might require huge validation investment, which is too much for individual developers. 
      • Herb mentioned that MCC10 workflows run, but that no one has looked at the results.
      • So seems MCC9 will remain a thing for a long time
    • In general, MicroBooNE needs more hand holding for Spack. Herb has looked at the tutorials and they don’t answer the questions he has.

• • DUNE

• • • Exactly when are we going to start building routinely with Spack?
    • Erica will check with SciSoft team
    • Should be happening on the CI system, right? Yes, in principle. 
    • Have to keep a version of all the pieces in the UPS products we have. I did that this week. DUNE dac people have a development environment that I don’t understand. Could ask them how they do Spack? Problem is multiple repositories. 

Please email Katherine Lato or Erica Snider for any corrections or additions to these notes.